


That Word "Forever"

by JRanger_Raven



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Scars, for rashipweeks on tumblr, i wrote this pretty quickly, love n stuff, mentions of halt, thnks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:31:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRanger_Raven/pseuds/JRanger_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will wishes nights like these could last forever... hopefully Horace feels the same. (Will/Horace)</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Word "Forever"

Will turned on his side, facing Horace. Their faces were already close, but they hadn’t been looking at each other. Will was just kind of leaning his head on Horace’s shoulder, and Horace wasn’t sure if they were falling asleep or not. He sure could’ve, very easily fallen asleep… Horace couldn’t remember a time where he felt more relaxed than he did now, laying in bed with Will by his side, their fingers intertwined… The door was locked; they hoped nobody would try to bother them.

But apparently they weren’t going to sleep yet. Will turned and faced Horace, a smile already on his lips, and he said, “So… anything crazy happen in Araluen lately?”

Part of Horace’s mouth turned up. His eyes were still closed, and he could feel Will’s gaze on him. “Thankfully, no,” he said. “I like being close to Cassandra; she’s really nice.” Horace was getting better at calling the princess Cassandra instead of Evanlyn. Every once in awhile he would slip, but it was usually around Cassandra and she didn’t mind.

“Hmph.” Will pouted. “Better not be leading her on.”

“I’m not, don’t worry. If she starts flirting or something I’ll just tell her I like her as a friend.” Horace squeezed Will’s hand, saying, “Those other feelings are reserved for you.”

Will knew that already, but hearing it out loud made him grin every time. He remembered that Horace’s eyes were closed, and just as he started hoping Horace would see how happy that made him, Horace opened his eyes and did just that. These moments where it felt like they were talking telepathically occurred more often now than it used to when they were at the height of their friendship. Now they were at the height of… something else.

Was it dating? Will knew it was basically dating, but he still didn’t like that word. It felt so… temporary. They weren’t testing their relationship anymore, they knew how well it worked. It had been a year since they started… Will just called it ‘being partners’. Even if this lasted for five years, or ten (and neither of them would mind if it did, to say the least), they still couldn’t go any farther past ‘being partners’. Marriage between two guys or two girls wasn’t so much illegal as it was nonexistent, so either way they couldn't do it. That was only if it ever went that far. Will didn’t want to be dating somebody for five or ten years. Being partners with them, though… he could live with that.

Just as Will forgot there was a conversation going on outside of his head, Horace asked him, “I heard something happened to you and Halt the other day.”

“Oh, yeah.” Will pushed all of those other thoughts out of his mind again and began his story, “So, Halt and I were going out to practice mapping, and when we got to our destination, several men showed up and started attacking us.”

“Did they read the map better than you?”

“Shut up. Anyway, Halt and I beat them up pretty quickly, but the bigger question is, who sent them? We kept a survivor and took him to Araluen Castle to see if the king could get anything out of him-”

“Will,” Horace interrupted again, “you’re in Araluen Castle. That’s why we’re here.”

“Oh.” Will laughed, embarrassed. “Yeah. Well, hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to get some more information. But the best part of this story is… I got a scar.”

Horace’s eyebrows came together, but it wasn’t out of anger. He was raising them, in concern, because Horace had scars (inside and out) and they most certainly weren’t the best part of any story. They were from pain and war and memories he spent years repressing. “How’d they hit you?” Horace asked.

“Oh, they had swords and I didn’t see one get close to me- which, believe me, Halt has not forgotten,” Will said, sighing. “I moved out of the way fast enough for him to miss, but his blade still hit my left arm. It was bad at first, but we treated it quickly and Halt said it’ll leave a scar for maybe a year or so.”

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t look so concerned,” Will said. He laughed to show Horace that it was okay. “I’ve had much worse injuries than this.”

“Make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“You worry too much.”

“No, I worry too much about you.”

Will smiled a little more at that. While he didn’t want Horace to be too stressed out over something he couldn’t control, or change, it felt good to know that Horace cared about him. A small, warm fire grew in his heart at the thought of Horace caring about him, and only him.

But Horace shouldn’t be so worried over this, specifically.

Will sat up, and put one hand over the end of his shirt. “Wanna see?” he asked. Horace sat up with him and nodded.

Horace had seen Will shirtless plenty of times (back when they were just friends, of course), but it never failed to surprise him just how well this Ranger training was toning him. Before Will got apprenticed to Halt, and Horace saw just how strenuous that training was, he thought it was all about sneaking around and being stealthy, not necessarily developing a physical strength. But, wow, it was. Thinking about it made Horace blush.

Will pointed to a red line, running from his bicep around to the underside of his arm. It wasn’t too big, nor was it very small. “It makes me look so badass,” he said.

“It looks like it hurts,” Horace whispered.

“The best thing is, I don’t even have to fake a story about where I got it from. I can just tell people the truth and they’ll be impressed. I’ll say ‘I got attacked by a couple assassins and I single-handedly fought them all off. I have this scar to prove it…’”

“What happened to Halt in that story?”

“They don’t need to know about him.”

"Who's 'they'?"

"The ladies..." Will winked at him, and Horace glared.

"He said, to his boyfriend," Horace narrated. Will just laughed, and after a moment Horace joined in. He knew Will was messing around. “Don’t let Halt hear your edited version of that story, either," he said.

“Forget about Halt- look at the scar!”

Horace took a better look at it. When he wasn’t thinking about how badly that must’ve hurt, and how, if he touched it, it would probably hurt him even more… it did make Will look a hundred times more dangerous. The scar happened to be in just the right place on his arm. Not too high, not too low… like he had planned it to make some sort of statement.

Horace smiled. “Actually, it does look kind of cool…”

Will grinned and said, “I know.”

Both of their attentions were taken from each other when they heard footsteps outside their door… Their hearts stopped in fear. They knew that the door was locked, but for some reason, they still got paranoid over any kind of sound outside their door. What if they had forgotten to lock it, and somebody walked in? What if that somebody demanded to be let in? What if they already knew Will was in there and accused them of doing something together?

The footsteps passed. Thirty seconds later, nothing happened.

Horace let out a sigh of relief. “The door is locked- I double-checked… but I can't help but worry…”

“It’s not somebody finding out that I’m worried about,” Will sighed. Horace glanced at him. What else is there to worry about? his face said. And Will knew his answer. He just hadn’t planned to say it out loud, for some reason… Where did he expect to go with this?

His heart was beating faster, now. Through the fear, he managed to open his mouth and whisper, “It’s the idea that… if somebody finds out about us and we can’t convince them to keep quiet about it, we might not be able to be together anymore. I don’t care who knows as long as we can keep this…” he gestured vaguely around them, “from ending. I don’t like that, and, furthermore it scares me because I want this…” he gestured again, “to last for a while longer.”

Horace was starting to smile, but Will didn’t see it yet. He just continued, “I wish nights like this would be a lot more frequent. I feel like- and I don’t know if you feel like this too, and I don’t want to scare you, but… I feel like, in a year, or in a few years… I’ll be even more in love with you than I am now, and just thinking about it ending so prematurely…” Will stopped, suddenly. Horace’s face was a light red, and Will was reaching a deeper color quickly. They had never said the word ‘love’ before…

Will realized he had been thinking it for a long time.

He looked away. Well, now it was definitely ending prematurely, he thought. “I love you,” he whispered.

He felt Horace’s hand on the side of his face, turning him to face Horace again. They were so close their noses touched… Will was scared, but once he saw the look in Horace’s eyes, he knew he had nothing to be scared of.

“I love you, too,” Horace whispered. And he brought Will closer, until their lips met.

Everything, even any noises outside their door that might’ve been there, disappeared from Will’s mind. They didn’t matter. Horace worried too much, but if he could kiss Will like this, like the world was perfect, and they had nothing to lose… then this could definitely last forever. Neither of them would mind if it did, to say the least.


End file.
